# Your favorite book written in the first person **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 26, 2019, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833 "2019-09-26T01:34:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/1 "2019-09-26T01:34:32Z")
I’m looking for recommendations for books written in the first person. Preferably a book that you really like. I did a search and the last such thread I could find was started in 2003. I’m looking for a story where the protagonist really shares a lot of himself and his feelings. I’m thinking of a book like Catcher In The Rye or Fight Club. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/2 "2019-09-26T01:49:14Z")
\*Huckleberry Finn \*, of course. _Davy_ by Edgar Pangbourn _Cat’s Cradle_ ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/3 "2019-09-26T01:58:59Z")
Richard Brautigan’s **In Watermelon Sugar.** Amaze your friends! Awe your teachers! Read a great short 1968 hippie novel no one reads any more! Also, **Moby-Dick** is good. A little longer, though. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/4 "2019-09-26T02:00:37Z")
Emergence, by David R. Palmer. Shorthand notes of a teenage girl surviving an apocalypse. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/5 "2019-09-26T02:04:21Z")
_ **Papillon** _, without a doubt. One helluva story, however much it might be embellished. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/6 "2019-09-26T02:18:27Z")
Lots of genre fiction. But, I get the impression you’re interested in Serious Literature. _The Name of the Rose_, or _Foucault’s Pendulum_, both by Umberto Eco, then. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/7 "2019-09-26T02:40:33Z")
If you don’t mind tilting toward a bit toward the young-adult style, there’s an early-20th-century series starting with _The Great Brain_ by John D. Fitzgerald. It’s narrated by a child, and is mostly about children, but it astutely observes all the realities of the world it’s set in (southern Utah, around 1900). ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/8 "2019-09-26T03:58:34Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > If you don’t mind tilting toward a bit toward the young-adult style, there’s an early-20th-century series starting with _The Great Brain_ by John D. Fitzgerald. It’s narrated by a child, and is mostly about children, but it astutely observes all the realities of the world it’s set in (southern Utah, around 1900). i didn’t read that series until hs but its one of the first kids series that points out the hypocrisy of kids and adults both in everyday life and it was written in the 20s and 30s …and it’s based on real things/people in the authors life like the story about their friend who was diabetic (you find out the person it was based on died as a teenager 5 years before insulin was released to the public in a PS) ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/9 "2019-09-26T04:05:06Z")
_The Book of Skulls_ by Robert Silverberg. It’s first person, but from 4 different characters. Each chapter is FP from one of the 4. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/10 "2019-09-26T04:53:29Z")
Looks like I have a trip to the library in my future! ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/11 "2019-09-26T08:34:35Z")
Only partly first person, but I love _Feersum Endjin_ by Iain M. Banks. _In Search of Lost Time_ by Marcel Proust is great. _The Stranger_ by Camus, likewise. _The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman_ by Angela Carter - surreal and a masterwork. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/12 "2019-09-26T11:23:51Z")
One of my favourites is David Copperfield. “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/13 "2019-09-26T11:34:55Z")
_Catcher in the Rye_. If it were in third-person with no interior monologues, it would be a pretty unremarkable story about a guy ditching school for a couple of days. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/14 "2019-09-26T12:24:00Z")
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/15 "2019-09-26T13:17:46Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > i didn’t read that series until hs but its one of the first kids series that points out the hypocrisy of kids and adults both in everyday life and it was written in the 20s and 30s …and it’s based on real things/people in the authors life like the story about their friend who was diabetic (you find out the person it was based on died as a teenager 5 years before insulin was released to the public in a PS) Interestingly, I was going to suggest the Great Brain series as well. They were my very favorite books when I was a kid, and are immensely readable. Just to make a slight correction, they were written a bit later than you’re remembering. The first book, _The Great Brain_, was published in 1967. The seventh and final book, _The Great Brain Does It Again_, came out in 1976. (There was an eighth book, _The Great Brain Is Back_, published in 1995, but it was compiled from Fitzgerald’s notes after his death). ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/16 "2019-09-26T13:29:39Z")
John Fowle’s The Collector, written in the alternating first person perspective of the both kidnapper and his victim. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/17 "2019-09-26T13:36:39Z")
My favorite first-person novel might be John Irving’s _A Prayer for Owen Meany_. And that made me think of Robertson Davies’ [Deptford Trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deptford_Trilogy), which influenced it. And that made me think of Susan Howatch’s [Starbridge series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Howatch#The_Starbridge_series), another series of interrelated books each with its own narrator. All good stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/18 "2019-09-26T13:40:16Z")
My two favorites have been mentioned, but I’d also throw in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Kidnapped by RL Stevenson. The latter is more of an adventure, but the first person perspective really gets you caught up in it. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/19 "2019-09-26T13:47:00Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > My two favorites have been mentioned I can guess what one of them is based on your username, but what’s the other? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833/20 "2019-09-26T14:01:03Z")
That’s like asking which of my favorite narrative stories begin with a vowel. I’m guessing that at least a quarter of them were first person tales. I read the John Carter of Mars series back in elementary school, enjoyed _North to Freedom_ when I encountered it, and found myself immersed in many an autobiography. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-book-written-in-the-first-person/840833.md?page=2)